Haunted
by LoveLoveLovix
Summary: Magical girl Ava Marie can handle a little haunted house, no matter how scary it is, or how easily scared she gets. After all, she's fought witches and risked her life... and isn't that the scariest thing of all? LoveLoveLovix's 3rd Annual Non-Christmas Holiday Fic (for the year 2012).


**Haunted  
**LoveLoveLovix's Non-Christmas Holiday Fic 2012

Ava Marie Marker had never been to a haunted house before. After all, she was a wimp. She knew it, her friends knew it, her family knew it. That was why everyone seemed reluctant to have Ava tagging along to Unchained Horror House. Someone, they seemed sure, would have to spend the experience convincing her it wasn't real, or letting her cry on his or her shoulder, or even leaving the house with her. Nobody wanted that. Wimpy Ava had brave friends, and they didn't mind being scared. Even enjoyed it.

What Ava's friends didn't know was that Ava couldn't think of anything scarier than what she experienced as a magical girl. Transforming and fighting dangerous witches who looked like the things from her nightmares was scary, and while she had become numb to the fact that she was risking her life, the images still got to her… the clown witch Dorothea had almost frightened her to death, literally, and Eugenia the dream witch summoned scenes from Ava's worst dreams. Worst of all was the tarot witch Katarine, able to see exactly how to unnerve poor Ava. Still, despite the horrors of it all, Ava had defeated each witch in turn. If she could face them, she could face some fake haunted house.

"You sure you want to do this, Ave?" That was Marley, a senior at Ava's high school and one of her close friends. "I was at Unchained last year. It's pretty creepy. And they run Unchained Junior for the sixteen and under crowd during the day… you're still young enough to do that one."

"Barely. I'll be seventeen next week." She rolled her eyes. "I'm going to do this. Better to regret what you did do, right?"

"If any of us have to sacrifice our ten bucks for this, you're going to be thinking the other way around," Marley said, her voice dangerous. She flipped her deep brown hair back out of the way and shot what could only be described as a threatening glare at Ava. "Especially if it's me."

Ava was having second thoughts, but not enough to merit waiting an hour outside in the cold while her friends went through lines and the attraction itself. Definitely not enough to merit walking home alone in the dark- she was more afraid of the actual human race than she was of witches and paid actors. "I'm doing this," she said, hopefully in a tone that didn't leave room for argument.

* * *

They argued anyways.

Marley, Roy, Josie, everyone. They all had some reason why she should wait outside, some threat for what would happen if she didn't. Some things seemed like good reasons for her to wait, but one thing kept her going- if she really wasn't ready now, she would never be, at least not in the eyes of her friends. Giving up today meant giving up forever. Waiting outside now meant she'd always be the 'fraidy-cat little girl tagalong.

They were at the door, and Ava went in with the rest of them. _Of course _they told her it wasn't too late to back out. It was, though. Every step she took forward actually was one she'd take back metaphorically if she gave up.

The line went quicker than anyone expected. In thirty minutes, they were at the front of the line, standing in front of another door. A normal-looking man (guess the experience hadn't started yet) divided them into two groups- there were too many for one- and ushered the first through a long, black curtain. Ava leaned forward, trying to hear screams, but she couldn't hear anything. Not even talking. In a way, that was scarier than anything else would be.

She looked around at her group. Marley was there, a few of her friends that Ava didn't know. Josie and her boyfriend. Linder, who had American Government with Ava, two seats and one row down. There was nobody she felt comfortable holding hands with, showing that while she wasn't going to have a break down, she was certainly very, very scared.

The man appraised the group. "In," he commanded, almost roughly. They went in.

The curtain led into a small room filled with all sorts of lights in all sorts of colors, like a club. There was no music, and the lights blinked at a pace that hurt Ava's head and almost made her dizzy. Uncomfortable, yes, but scary, no. She stroked her Soul Gem ring, trying to derive a little bit of comfort from it anyway.

Suddenly, the lights went out, and Ava and the others were in darkness. Marley laughed. You could always tell Marley's laughter because it always sounded like giggling, which was funny and out of character. Ava held up her hand, trying to see it, but it was too dark. That was okay, too. The dark didn't scare her either.

"Ava, I told you not to do this," Marley said. Her voice was annoyed. "Hold your own hand if you're scared."

Ava may not have been able to see her hands, but it wasn't like she couldn't feel them. "I'm not holding your hand," she said, irritated. "From your voice, I'm on the opposite side of the room from you."

"Well then, who…"

The lights flickered on, and Marley screamed. Ava looked for her, and saw her holding the hand of a woman in tattered clothing, weird machinery all over her face, arms, and chest. Her heart jumped, picking up pace, and she tried to calm herself. _Only an actress. Only an actress. _

"She won't let go!" Marley said, sounding out of breath, but much less scared. The woman's head angled, as if she was studying Marley, then she began to lead Marley away. Ava and the others followed as they were led down a dark hallway lit only with fake candles. _That's lame. They could have at least used real ones. _At the end of the hall was another small room, again pitch black. The group crammed in, trying to make room, but there wasn't much, and Ava found herself squashed against something cold and hard, something that felt metallic. There were three small clicks, one after the other, and the lights turned on. The metallic thing was a chair, bolted in the middle of the floor. She looked around, and everyone seemed uncomfortably squished.

Linder tried the door that he was against. "Locked," he said.

"Well, duh." Marley rolled her eyes. "Locked room. It's basic. That must have been one of the click-sounds we heard, the door locking."

There was a crackling sound from above, and it seemed like everyone looked up. In the center of the ceiling, right above the chair, was an old speaker. Just a fixture in the ceiling with little holes. And from the speaker, came a monotone voice reciting nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes weren't scary.

Except when they were.

Ava gripped the chair tightly, just needing something to squeeze. Around her, people were beginning to look uncomfortable, scared. What was the purpose of a room with a single chair and a single speaker? What was the purpose of a dull recitation of Humpty Dumpty and Rock-a-bye Baby?

Something wet hit Ava's hand, and she looked down. The something wet was deep red, and it was rolling down her hand and onto her arm. Another drop hit her in the head, seeping through her hair so she felt the wetness of it on her scalp. She looked up. It was coming from the speaker. _Blood _was dripping from the speaker. A drop landed on her Soul Gem ring.

She tried to tell herself it was fake, but she still let go of the chair and backed up, teeth chattering with fear and panic. There was a safe word, she remembered it, and now would have been a great time to scream it, except for one thing. Marley seemed to know exactly what Ava was thinking, and she was glaring.

Ava pursed her lips and let the blood drip onto the chair.

The door next to Linder opened, and Linder looked out, glancing around and trying to find the person who opened the door. "No one's there," he called back. "Let's go."

The group filed into a long hallway. How many were there? At least this one attempted frightening- the floor was tilted in all sorts of directions, and the walls were made of mirrors. Not exactly horror movie material, but much better than flickering faux candlelight.

Josie screamed.

Everyone ran to her, and she pointed at one of the mirrors. Instead of her face was a clown, blood dripping from his lips. He too was pointing. Josie took a step back, and for a moment, it looked like the clown would too. But instead, he took a step forward, smiling- no, baring sharp shark teeth. Josie huddled into Marley. "You said they didn't have clowns!" she squealed.

Marley shrugged. "They didn't last year." Then, she looked at Ava. "So you weren't the first to break down. I'm surprised."

"If we count screaming as breaking down, that was you who was first," said one of Marley's friends, but he was ignored, and the group went on, Josie holding her hands over her eyes, only looking when she bumped into someone. They hadn't even gone twenty steps forward when the next torture started, an ear-splitting alarm out of nowhere. There wasn't a single person who didn't cover their ears, but Josie completely broke down sobbing.

"What's so scary about loud noises?" Linder shouted.

Marley shook her head. "Um, the suddenness? I don't know."

Ava knew Marley was right. It was the suddenness. Besides being easily scared, Ava was also easily startled, and she knew exactly why Josie had broken down. It was horrifying, the noise out of nowhere. Even when it stopped, Ava felt her heart pumping at a rate that was unnatural.

She wanted to call out the safety word, wanted to when they found themselves surrounded by very real-feeling bugs that were squashed under their feet and dropped onto their heads. When something cold and wet flicked across skin- how the haunted house people pulled that one off, Ava never would know. Especially when they opened a door that held a corpse that Marley had to touch, and that was deemed the most lifelike- or deadlike- thing in the entire experience.

Josie was still crying when Marley saw light. "Almost out," she said. "I give it a six out of ten. Nowhere near as awesomely haunting as Flightmare last week."

"You went housing without me?" Linder groaned.

Marley shrugged. "That was an eighteen-plus house. We couldn't have brought you. You can tag along next year."

Then, Marley turned to Ava. "Guess I owe you an apology. You're more of a survivor than I thought. I expected you to break first thing."

Ava gave a weak shrug, but didn't trust herself to speak, to give away how scared she was.

They got to the end of the hallway. Marley held open the curtain that matched the one at beginning of Unchained Horror House. "Ava goes first, in honor of her first ever haunted house experience. May it be the beginning of many."

Ava managed a shaky smile as she walked through the curtain. She looked around at the room, which seemed to be the same waiting room that they started in, only this one had no line. She frowned. It wasn't early enough for the line to be finished and the show to be closing, was…

An indescribable scream echoed through the room as a man with a whirling, bloody chainsaw appeared in front of her, and she blacked out.

* * *

When Ava came to, Tenby was on her chest. "What are you doing here?" she said weakly. "What's going on?"

"Come on, Ava," said the small white and pink alien impatiently. "They'll be here any moment!"

"Who will?" She was a little more awake now.

"The police! Luckily for us the people who called them thought you were dead too, or else it would be tremendously hard for you to fight witches and gain grief seeds and…"

Ava tuned her mascot partner out. "Dead… too?"

With a sigh and a stretch, she stood. From the corner of her eye she saw her orange armband that only appeared as part of her magical girl uniform and she wondered vaguely when she had transformed. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and then looked at Tenby, who was leaning over something.

A dead body.

Marley's dead body.

Ava screamed, louder than she thought possible, and Tenby glanced up. "Why are you so surprised? You killed them."

Them. Ava looked around, and saw that them was correct. The chainsaw man was there, and the bodies of Ava's friends formed a straight line back, through the curtain, as if they were lined up behind her. "I…"

"Hurry, Ava, it's time to go!" called Tenby. "Follow me!"

Ava was too shocked to argue, but also too shocked to run. She followed him out, numb. "What happened?" she asked when she finally managed to speak.

"You seemed to have been instinctively channeling some deep power inside you! You used your inner power instead of your normal weapon, and it seemed to set off like a bomb. This will do well against witches if you can replicate it! Speaking of, we need to go find one. After such a display of power, your gem must be nearly clouded over!"

When Ava did not respond, Tenby looked back.

She was holding her orange gem tenderly in her hand and staring at it as a fake psychic looked into a crystal ball. "This power is scariest," she whispered so quietly Tenby could barely hear. "I thought the witches were scariest, but that's not right. It's me. I'm the scariest."

Ava laughed, a short, maniacal thing that would have gave anyone human shivers up their spine. It was laughter that belonged in a haunted house, or in the mouth of a murderer. It was the laughter of the insane.

Ava Marie Marker, or what was left of her, threw her gem onto the concrete, and the last thing she saw was the shards of her soul bouncing across pavement.

* * *

Author's Note: Happy Halloween! Hope you enjoyed Ava's story (and I hope you understood the obvious wordplay on her name). If you did, you might want to look at my 2011 Christmas story "The Gift of the Puella Magi," which is a rewrite of O. Henry's famous holiday story that takes place in the PMMM universe. I also have just started on a PMMM/Precure crossover called "Catch Me," so yeah. :)

Happy Halloween! Watch out for men with chainsaws!


End file.
